A clean energy developer temporarily hit the pause button on a proposed wind farm project in southwest Minnesota, in part because of the Trump administration’s tariffs.
National Grid Renewables proposed to build a 414 megawatt wind farm that would place up to 74 wind turbines in parts of Cottonwood, Murray and Redwood Counties, with a transmission line to connect the clean power to the electricity grid.
National Grid Renewables’ Plum Creek Wind project had already cleared some of the hurdles, gaining state approval for two key permits for the project, and had planned to begin construction this fall.
But Pete Wyckoff, deputy commissioner of energy resources for the Minnesota Department of Commerce confirmed that the company has put the project on hold.
“Because of a variety of factors, including … tariffs, that are causing inflation in energy prices, and causing inflation in prices for components for projects like this,” Wyckoff said. “They have put the delay in on completing the project.”
MPR News reached out to National Grid Renewables, the project developer for the Plum Creek Wind Farm project. They declined to comment on this story.
Slowed down development
Other clean energy developers are also experiencing difficulties in completing power generation projects because of President Donald Trump’s push to increase tariffs on foreign-made goods, including parts, materials and components needed for wind turbines and solar panels.
EDF Power Solutions — formerly known as EDF Renewables — is among those navigating similar challenges in the clean energy industry. Adam Sokolski, director for regulatory and legislative affairs, said the Trump administration’s higher tariffs and on-again, off-again approach to implementing them are significantly increasing costs and making it difficult to plan ahead in an already challenging industry.
“It’s caused a lot of uncertainty about what the cost of that product is going to be next week, next month, next year, and for us, that’s slowed down our development in some cases, or execution on projects,” Sokolski said. “That’s true across the technologies we work with.”
Sokolski added he was concerned about the U.S.’s ability to keep up with energy production and the demand. He noted that it takes a long time to build “any type of energy infrastructure.”
“It takes time, it takes investment. It takes steady policy to try to get us through those uncertain times to build capital intensive projects,” Sokolski said. ”So, we’re concerned with the difference between the market signal and the policy signal here in the U.S. and that’s going to sort itself out to ensure that we’ve got sufficient affordable, clean electricity for customers in the near future.”
‘Who bears the risk?’
This uncertain landscape isn’t new for clean energy developers, who are already dealing with the frustration of long permitting processes amid high demands for electricity, and struggles with getting infrastructure in place to connect renewable energy sources to the power grid.
Beth Soholt, executive director of Clean Grid Alliance, a nonprofit based in the Twin Cities, said she’s seeing more wind developers backing out of projects.
“The tariff situation is also tough to know how to deal with in a power purchase agreement,” Soholt said. “Who’s going to bear the risk if the cost increases? Wind development is no different than lots of other large industries. They need certainty to be able to bring their projects to completion, and development is already difficult, and tariffs are adding to that risk and difficulty.”
Soholt said the slow pace of projects being able to connect to the power grid has been an ongoing challenge for the clean energy industry. She added the supply chain and cost increases are also putting more stress onto those trying to meet deadlines — especially with the price of materials continuing to increase because of inflation.
“It is difficult with all these changing components for a developer to be able to quote a price to a utility and hold that for a long time, given supply chain and given cost increases,” Soholt said. “We just need to be doing this faster. Minnesota has clean energy goals to meet by 2040, and the clock is ticking.”
But state officials insist that Minnesota is still making progress in working to reach the clean energy goals in 15 years. Wyckoff said that while developers are re-examining some projects, demand for clean energy is still high.
The Plum Creek Project getting delayed, Wyckoff added, doesn’t indicate the overall trajectory for the state’s clean energy goals are off track.
“One project is not what we are depending on for hitting our 2040 goals,” Wyckoff said. “We have a mandate for 100 percent clean energy in the state by 2040. We have a robust process for getting there, and it is not dependent on any one project or any group of particular projects, but we are on track. It is a long term sort of arc to get from here to there, and I am not worried that this project going on pause says anything in particular about our goals.”
